King Wissel Ellenheim looked over the draft with his ministers. The new Doschian Military would be based off the Kirinyaan Model. Kassandora did not publicize how her army was structured, but it wasn’t too hard to copy frankly.
He signed off on another bill. One for the nationalization of bankrupting factories and the retooling of them to create an arms industry. Lubska would handle the small arms. Rancais already had a sizable air-industry, they would be responsible for an Epan Airforce. Rilia would assist where needed. The Allians would handle light vehicles, trucks and logistics, their industry was already suited for it. They’d also be responsible for the development of new engine. And Doschia? Doschia would do the heavy armour.
Fer took the lead as the party headed deeper through the tunnels. It was confirmed now that there were demons here, and she didn’t believe Iliyal’s proposition that what they just saw was a rogue succubus. Frankly, she doubted the elf believe it himself, but it was a possibility, however slim, so he simply had to voice the possibility of that scenario happening. She pointed an arm forwards and scanned the dark walls.
Just as she remembered from the past. Smooth stone, the geometric diagrams were beginning now. Looping squares and rectangles that carefully maintained even distance from each other, they flowed along the walls. Every so often, there was a small ridge where lamps were mounted in the past. Although not anymore, now it was darkness, the only sounds where the shuffling feet behind her. Iliyal was quiet, Kavaa was almost as stealthy as him. Fer could hear both of them, although in this silence, she could make out their heartbeats, a normal man would not be able to catch their steps.
And then the five Nationals behind Kavaa and Iliyal. They took heavy breathes and heavier steps. Iliyal had dressed them up in armour to train endurance marching, but now the plates of that armour were drumming against so loud that Olonia and her friends may as well have just been a marching band. Fer took a step, leaned her head back and took a sniff of the air again. Blood, although it was the succubi blood on her hand. Stone, that was just a dusty smell of rock. Copper and iron in the walls too. Well, they were in mountains, there was nothing out of the ordinary. So they she kept on walking. She followed her instincts, there was nothing in her gut that told her she was being watched, nothing that said of imminent danger, the sounds were stable. All she heard were the footsteps and heartbeats from behind. Nothing to worry about then.
King Richard VI of Allia visited a factory belonging to Thomas & Son’s. One for truck parts, although he knew the owner of this company. The man didn’t know he engineers were designing engines for Doschia’s new tanks, but he had heartily accepted the project.
Who wouldn’t after all? He had given no restrictions on fuel efficiency. No care for range. No stipulations on cost. All that the new engines had to do was not break down and push sixty tons of weight forwards. Honestly, a project like this was every designer’s dream.
Fer took another step and looked at the walls. How long had they been marching for now? Iliyal would probably know, but she had grown bored at this point, it felt like days, like weeks. It felt as if they had spent a year down here. It had to be at least one day though, Iliyal had taken a nap in one of the resting rooms that was carved into the centre. That was another case were Fer didn’t know how long, she was sure these tunnels had grown long with her time away.
She took a breath though, and watched the square patterns take a harsh turn, then continue straight. So they had gotten to the bottom of the entranceway. This would be one of the feeder roads into a highway later on. She turned her light off, and was engulfed in darkness. The rest of the team were a half-mile stretch behind, she had just gone ahead in case there was anything here.
It was a thick, impenetrable darkness. Maybe some would call it overpowering, but Fer had felt her sister’s darkness. That was overpowering. This was not, it was simply as if she closed her eyes. There were still sounds, although all of them were from behind. Footsteps and metal armour and whispered words being hushed between Olonia and Saksma and Agrita. There were smells too, far more metal down here, although the grand tunnels would be reinforced by beams, so it made sense.
There was sulphur too. Not fresh though, but aged. As if someone had contaminated this area with rotten eggs, left them to seep into the walls, then cleared them away. Not a pleasant smell, but and weak. Maybe Kavaa would miss it, Iliyal had a chance too. Olonia probably wouldn’t smell it in the first place. Fer squinted as she looked down the long straight road. There was no light, nothing. It was simply pitch black.
She took a sigh, sat down, and waited for Iliyal to catch up.
President Artois of Rancais sat in a meeting with the men who led the Groupe AR: Groupe Aerospace Rancais. They were all looking at the contract with shocked eyes. He had just given them the chance to go from being in the red for the past two years to fully making up all the profits. It’d be a tight schedule, it wouldn’t be easy for them of course, but Artois knew they wouldn’t deny him this project:
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The Rancais Fighter Aircraft-1.
Fer narrowed her eyes as Iliyal and Kavaa caught up. They were walking through one of the feeder tunnels towards the Epan East-West highway. The walls were now decorated, with pieces of dwarf-bronze making geometrical patterns: all straight lines and right angles. There were pillars too, some still standing, most long toppled. Fer’s eyes inspected the walls as they marched, there were signs of battle. Cannonballs had been launched into the stone, there were piles of rubble here and there. Small stones that looked ammunition for catapults too. Scratch marks littered the walls, scratches of claw and scratches of blade. And almost everywhere, they were scorched. The smell had long passed though, these markings had probably been here a decade or two then. Not too long though, else they would have started to fade. Fer turned to look back at the five girls.
The five behind them weren’t important frankly. They were only here to see what real combat was like, to absorb the lessons of what warfare was like from a distances. Fer didn’t bother looking back, Iliyal and Kavaa didn’t need checking up on, and the five National Goddesses weren’t worth paying attention to at the moment. Training time was over.
So they kept marching, as the tunnel started opening up. This wasn’t a highway yet, a highway would be large enough to march a thousand men side to side, entire legions would be only a drop in the ocean in the terrible depths of a highway.
The depths yawned around her, its edges devoured by the shadows so deep Fer could almost fall into them. The torch was powerful, but Fer had to swing her arms for the light to reach the walls. Even then, it revealed little, only fleeting glimpses of jagged stone and faint markings that could have been carvings or cracks. The light transformed them into shifting shapes and whispers of forms. No doubt scary for the Five Nationals, but there was no smell here. Only stone, various metals, coals, and the sulphur. That was becoming stronger with every step. Kavaa should be able to start smelling it now, if not now, then soon at least.
Fer blinked her thoughts away. They weren’t real, so they weren’t anything to worry about. It was mere irrational fear, but what could irrationality do? What was it even, the moment she gave it more than a thought, it ran away from her like a tiny little rabbit running away from a fox. Fer sniffed the air again, she had assumed they’d be in here for a week at least, but with how strong the smell was getting, then they’d reach the target in an hour or two.
Aimone walked through an outdoors club in southern Rilia. This had been Wissel’s idea, to raise support for them, but as he walked, he really did feel the energy of it. Men setting off, going on competing hikes, each one trying to reach their destination first. These would make fine troops for an army, that’s all Aimone had to know.
There was a meeting to do, the first batch of guns from Lubska would arrive to Rilia first, and he wanted to tell these men to start practicing shooting. It would be nothing too dire, no talk of war or anything, but just as boys loved playing with swords, wouldn’t men love playing with guns?
Fer turned off her light. Iliyal snapped his fingers, the rest of the torches were turned off too. At the end of the tunnel, there was a light. A warm glow, not that white light of electrical torches, but rather the cosy crackle of fire. It bounced and dances in that darkness, growing brighter and dimmer as if it was pulsing to the beating of a heart.
Fer took a deep breath and closed the distance. Towards another harsh bend. She felt heard Iliyal shuffle close as her fingers touched the carved stone wall. Kavaa came in close behind them. Olonia, Agrita, the rest of them, all stayed far behind.
Fer leaned over as Iliyal came close. They both looked past the wall. Kavaa scooted past them, and her head above the elf’s but below of Beasthood’s. And they looked at those warm lights. Fer narrowed her eyes. She heard Kavaa’s breath catch. She heard Iliyal whisper a curse to himself. And she felt her heart beat faster, her nails wanted to extend into claws.
Further on, beyond those flames they saw the encampment. Tall pillars of flame, all reaching from the paved stone ground to the high ceiling. At least a dozen of them, all great wide enough to fit an entire train carriage in within them. Several were open portals, the flames turned violet, then blue, until they burned with the heat and angry hiss of a gas stove. Through those, Fer could see the insides of deep, almost black-red buildings. Barracks then, as had been seen in the past, although she had never stepped through one of portals before.
But whereas the open gateways to the other world were disconcerting, it was the army around them that was the true sight to gawk at. Tens of thousands of troops, all in Tartarian blacksteel. Armed with heavy cleavers and halberds were assembled. Some sat in hastily constructed tents and buildings, others were performing basic training. Nothing like what Kassie had ever done, instead it was all competition games. Wrestling and duelling with those heavy blades that demons loved to use.
But it was the vehicles that Fer saw that made her jaw drop. Great beasts of dark steel, all moving, with turning gears and with great batteries of what looked to be magma on their backs. On both sides, they had a cannon fixed to the body, and great spotlights in the middle. Those definitely did not exist a thousand years ago. Around them flew winged demons, both small imps in their nakedness, armed with spears, and greater demons, twice to thrice the height of Fer herself, as thick as a car was long. Their muscles rippling as they turned and twisted in the air.
At the very least, they didn’t see any archdemons, but they had found what they needed to find. It was time to report back to Kassandora.
Tartarus was on Arda.